Uploaded September 2020 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Luigi beats Cosmic Luigi in 2.5 A Presses.
This saves 0.5x over the previous count, avoiding having to jump up to the big tree by getting on the wooden fence, spinning onto the mushrooms, and spinning up to the ledge.
Technically, the star is possible to reach in at least 0.5xA just by spinning up the intended path, but the cosmic clone is too fast to beat that way, and is still too fast to beat with a couple of jumps along that way, so instead we do the speedrun strat in as few A presses as possible.
On the way to the wooden fence, I ran up the side of the log to fall off it and remove hard landing state, which then allows me to control the direction of spin knockbacks.
The 0.5x was needed to get the height to spin onto the mushrooms.
When on the mushrooms, I slid off in such a way that it bumped Luigi up, which helped get enough height to spin to the ledge.
#SuperMarioGalaxy #AButtonChallenge
Luigi beats Cosmic Luigi in 2.5 A Presses.
This saves 0.5x over the previous count, avoiding having to jump up to the big tree by getting on the wooden fence, spinning onto the mushrooms, and spinning up to the ledge.
Technically, the star is possible to reach in at least 0.5xA just by spinning up the intended path, but the cosmic clone is too fast to beat that way, and is still too fast to beat with a couple of jumps along that way, so instead we do the speedrun strat in as few A presses as possible.
On the way to the wooden fence, I ran up the side of the log to fall off it and remove hard landing state, which then allows me to control the direction of spin knockbacks.
The 0.5x was needed to get the height to spin onto the mushrooms.
When on the mushrooms, I slid off in such a way that it bumped Luigi up, which helped get enough height to spin to the ledge.
#SuperMarioGalaxy #AButtonChallenge
![[TAS] SMG2: Spin-Dig Green Stars
Green Stars TAS WIP
Star order has no time difference; the yellow platforms on the 3rd planet might be slightly different but are easily manipulated using the camera.
Green Star 2 - 37.75 IGT - 11:19.80 real-time split (1:34.12 segment)
Crouching next to the orange pole when running towards the edge causes a strangely fast slide for 1 frame. Jumping from this into a double jump-triple jump saved 0.6s over a regular triple jump.
The triple jump sequence also had small adjustments to get the tilt right for the triple jump to curve over the edge and land directly into the Lumas talking area.
Camera turn saved 1 frame of cutscene time.
Drill clip from underneath is an IL strat that saves 1.16s over topside.
The yellow platforms are manipulated with a camera turn so that Luigi lands on the middle ones while they spawn. Their collision moves upwards as they spawn, adding momentum to a backflip to save 10 frames.
Green Star 1 - 15.81 IGT - 12:19.23 real-time split (59.43 segment)
Unlike in GS2, the digger is on a good cycle, so the faster starting movement is a backwards slope jump (which also gets unusually fast speed for a couple of frames) into a bounce and spin; the slope speed is somehow conserved so landing on the sloped edge of the Lumas platform causes an immediate fast slide.
P2 is used on the digger, and then also to spin the Luma. This prevents Luigis spin from making the Luma dizzy which would make it take longer to be able to talk. This saved 8 frames, with the whole digger strat saving 0.32s over the strat used on GS2.
Green Star 3 - 21.38 IGT - 13:36.08 real-time split (1:16.85 segment)
Vine RNG is so bad. Different timing on Piranha kill and even seemingly different timing grabbing the vine has an affect on the speed of its growth.
Luigis speed on the vine is dependant on how fast it grows; this is why its faster to not get the earliest Piranha kill, so Luigi is on the vine as its still growing. His speed is also affected by the rate (and possibly even strength) of spin inputs - holding off on shaking for a couple of frames ended up saving a couple of frames.
In the last section, neutral walljump strain was used to get to the star a little bit earlier.
#SuperMarioGalaxy2 #ToolAssistedSpeedrun [TAS] SMG2: Spin-Dig Green Stars](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dqkDv7LoOC0/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TAS] SMG2: Hightail Falls GS3 in 57.23s
WARNING: Some weird flashing (its strobey but dark) when eating or single jumping with a Dash Pepper (or first person cameras). This is a graphical bug in the older version of Dolphin Im using (5.0 stable).
Green Stars TAS WIP
I was planning to put all 3 on here but GS2 had a desync. It was good in the end as I had found some improvements for GS3 - beforehand I didnt want to have to go back and redo everything but the desync motivated me to go back.
This is roughly a 2.9s improvement over this demo from last year, which has a lot of detail on some tricks: https://youtu.be/IlklCoR-V2A
57.23s IGT - 27:34.13 real-time split (1:53.28 segment)
The single jump into Yoshi was a little faster than another long jump, as another long jump would float in the air too long.
The main tech is Dash Pepper jumping.
Bunnyhopping along the ground is a little over 1 frame faster per jump, as running speed peaks at 32.4 units/frame, whereas jumping speed has an initial speed boost between 60-70, a speed of 32 while going up, and a speed of up to 34.7 while falling. Theres a frame with about 28 when landing.
Jumping on edges when horizontal will cause a lower jump, but on edges of slopes and ramps, it causes a much higher jump, which can then get up ramps faster.
The jump up the first big curve saved ~0.5s.
Double jumps can be constantly done by fluttering each jump, even if only for a frame.
The jump up the big wall saved ~0.8s. This was where I had found improvement in GS2 later on, 13 frames improvement with a much better jumping angle.
The big flutter at the end is the jda flutter. To keep all the speed going forwards, Yoshi needs to jump off the stone block as its falling, and also needs to be *on* the block; jumping off the very edge doesnt work.
After some time, a sideways slightly backwards angle needs to be held to keep speed, as is usually done for infinite flutters.
Flutter height is maxed to be as close to the first flower swing as possible.
This flower swing route is where much of the timesave comes over the 2021 demo. I must have done really badly with this route back then to find it as 0.45s slower than some Dash jumping, when in fact its 0.6s faster with what I had known then, and now its 2s faster with a new technique.
This technique is grabbing a flower swing at a specific spot so Yoshi ends up facing opposite to the way the swing goes. This spot is directly under the swing, with only 1 unit of margin on each side.
This gives Yoshi a lot of backwards momentum to add to a dismount that flies back into the star.
The swing animation is cancelled with a frame-perfect flutter, but this loses a bit of height so it only saved 1 frame needing a weakspin to grab the star.
#supermariogalaxy2 #toolassistedspeedrun [TAS] SMG2: Hightail Falls GS3 in 57.23s](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eFt2U7PtYkU/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TAS] SMG: Freezeflame 3 final section without using Ice Flower
Now making this public to coincide with Supper Mario Broths Twitter post detailing the water boxes: https://twitter.com/MarioBrothBlog/status/1365716700520460289
[Written from the past; early February]
A few days ago, HEYimHeroic (https://twitter.com/HEYimHeroic) told me that they and Supper had been discussing about water boxes placed in Freezeflames lava platforms, placed there as a workaround for Ice Mario instead of having to programme Ice to run on lava. They wondered if it could be possible to swim below the platforms.
This section had long been considered (but not proven) as possible when the idea of jumping on edges of lava came about: https://youtu.be/Qj2hvqlstp4?t=315 (video was just last year, but the clips were recorded sometime 2019. There are many clips of speedrunners jumping on lava too, as it seems quite easy to do if you overshoot jumping into the lava for Freezeflame 2 skip).
Around the same time I TASed this, Usernameispassword also completed this challenge by solely using these jumps (and long jumps too); no full video yet but there is a clip of their star grab in the TAS server. You should join that, by the way: https://discord.gg/h2YSCZm
But after I had made a showcase for Heroic of accessing and swimming in the waterboxes, I wanted to include the trick while completing the challenge.
It was unnecessary for the first gravity section, as I could have just long jumped across the large gap and got the same 2 lavaboosts to the snowy platforms. But it looks cool, right? Right?
I wanted something different for the 2nd section, so I long jumped over and lavaboosted to the Ice Flower platform, getting a small bounce off the rocky side of a lava platform, and then showcasing the lava running tech that you can learn about here: https://youtu.be/W28X4lLB2nY
For the final section, I did a lava edge jump and angled wallkick, and then swam most of the way up until a point where the next lava platform wasnt connected to the one I was in. I did some slow wallkick and then got a long jump off the edges of two platforms. I ended with a sideflip done by holding back and pressing A just before landing.
So this is one less transformation for SMG1. I understand some define Life Mushroom as a transformation, but with the tech involved, it isnt actually necessary.
ice flower date of death: 8th feb 2021 rip f in chat sob emoji
#SuperMarioGalaxy #Transformationless [TAS] SMG: Freezeflame 3 final section without using Ice Flower](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fUmJLqo8kWg/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TAS] SMG2: Flip-Swap GS1 in 5.96s
Luigi hyperjumps eastward into a Green star in 5.96 seconds [IGT, 358 frames].
-2 over my 2022 TAS: https://youtu.be/RikJY-wwPDk
@Joselle_Astrid really had everything figured out long ago, and her research pops back up every now and then, and something within it is then realised for optimisation.
This time its that aerial movement is ever so slightly faster when going east or west (side-facing the camera) compared to north/south (away from or towards the camera respectively). https://docs.google.com/document/d/14DAcbHw0OPSL2psmxpvAPtpAVdF_AYkYJyeE8GNZKjM/edit
This helps both in getting a slightly further long jump and single jump so they can be done earlier, and in a faster flip panel long jump, overall saving 6 frames (note: a smaller bit of improvement may have also been from a better understanding of gaining height from flip panel jumps).
As the camera is so free in this level, its much easier to get the potential out of the east/west gain, but a lot of levels would have trouble due to either limited movement or forcing itself back to the over-the-shoulder perspective - we dont have SM64s luxury of knowing if were keeping straight while the camera moves, so its harder to get the benefits.
#supermariogalaxy2 #toolassistedspeedrun [TAS] SMG2: Flip-Swap GS1 in 5.96s](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fnTWLzyNF_M/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TAS] SMG2: Battle Belt Green Star 3 in 47.38s
This may be one of the greatest Galaxy TAS stars.
Green Stars TAS WIP
47.38s IGT - 2:12:30.38 real-time split (1:43.52 segment)
This is a huge improvement over my 2021 TAS: https://youtu.be/C1RfkOBAQ8o?feature=shared
Most of this improvement comes from two major skips found by Sheep: the Pumpkin skip ( https://youtu.be/S5-HEBzZ6Bg?feature=shared ) and the Mole skip ( https://youtu.be/-nE7z_5YTqA?feature=shared )
These skips use an advanced zip jump technique also found by Sheep called Edge Zip Jumping.
When Luigi grinds along the edge of a floor (doesnt happen with all floors) he is a little faster than normal running speed. Also, when on the edge of a slope Luigi wont slip but runs normally. This combination of buggy interactions (including just how curved slopes work) leads to much faster zips that are still able to jump without being reset to 0.
An important quirk to this is the camera. The camera affects the slipperiness of slopes ( https://youtu.be/7gjMQlb7KZY?feature=shared ) and also tilt, which means the camera angle is crucial to getting the glass to be slopes in the place we want it to be.
In both skips, I face a particular direction when landing and use the C button to centre the camera to facing angle. An added step to setting up the Mole skip is moving downwards at the start of the run to bring the camera down.
Another thing for Mole skip is that this is a case where sometimes holding Z during the zip is faster - the Pumpkin skip has no effect.
Also for Mole skip, its faster to get the minimum amount of speed necessary, as this lets Luigi move further along the final planet before catching the gravity so the ground pound can be done earlier. Pressing C during the zip saved 2 frames, as the camera change had an affect on speed as well.
As for other timesaves:
- the Galoomba bounce at the start was 4 frames faster than running around
- there was a small bump off one of the Cinders that saved a few frames
- the better Crabber skip (also a Sheep idea) saved 1.75s
- some time was saved with the new Lil Brr route using the starbits (unsure how much as their position is slightly different than the previous TAS)
#supermariogalaxy2 #toolassistedspeedrun [TAS] SMG2: Battle Belt Green Star 3 in 47.38s](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gDvVwxt1Ges/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TAS] SMG2: Sweet Mystery Green Stars
Green Stars TAS WIP
Star order matters a very little bit due to the Choppah cycles explained more below. GS1 first is 1 frame faster.
Green Star 1 - 7.30 IGT - 1:18:04.36 real-time split (1:02.70 segment)
Even with cutscenes, this is a 1f IGT improvement over my 2021 TAS (uses Mario as his acceleration is better): https://youtu.be/xrkFOBb8Qe4
2P egg break is tied fastest with a backwards double jump that spins at the end.
I had to delay jumping and fluttering on Yoshi because of a cooldown on spinning. Backwards fluttering stays at the same speed after a short time (the third flutter in this TAS).
The flutter acceleration - and subsequent speed (about 29 horizontal speed) - gained from the spin makes this strat a few frames faster than fluttering as early as possible.
Bouncing off the berry (possible by having Yoshi stick its tongue out with B) is a strat I lifted from Jeromes GS2 IL: https://youtu.be/Yz8QEhgTgY8
Bouncing gets a burst of speed and brings flutters straight to the cap of 32hspd.
It caps at 32hspd when ascending (y speed above 0) but can go a little higher when descending. The burst of speed is maximised by keeping a flutter through bouncing, as this makes Yoshi fall earlier, being able to get up to 38hspd rather than the 34 when actually bouncing.
The bounce saved 0.2s.
An extra frame was saved thanks to the Choppah, which is where star order came in. With cutscene cycles it ends up right next to the berry, and with a 2P freeze I brushed by it so it nudged Yoshis trajectory more towards the star. This saved having to strain harder during the flutters, which would have lowered the burst of speed.
Dismounting gets another burst of speed including a mini-warp of about 67spd.
Green Star 2 - 11.20 IGT - 1:18:58.55 real-time split (54.19s segment)
Backwards jump with a spin at the end was fastest egg break by 9 frames.
Same things apply as above with the spin-start flutter and berry flutter-bouncing.
Eventually the burst of speed runs out and there isnt much bonus falling speed when going (mostly) backwards, so I go for height-optimal flutters near the end to be able to dismount as early as possible.
#supermariogalaxy2 #toolassistedspeedrun [TAS] SMG2: Sweet Mystery Green Stars](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/giU2MNLEkAE/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TAS demo] SMG2: Starshine Beach GS3 in 45.46s w/ cutscenes
Luigi does 4 cloud long jumps to a Green star.
Long jump ground pounding into the water at the start is ~0.25s faster than spinning backwards from the land cancel straight into the water.
Camera turns are done to keep the clouds off-screen so that they stop moving. This makes up for the bad cycle that is a result of cutscenes, and sets up a quick triple jump off the lowest cloud and wallkick up to the highest cloud to get up the tower ~2s faster than the Pianta Im a chuckster! strat.
It also makes the long jumps more of a nuisance to optimise.
I found the backflip by accident when holding Z to try to get an instant sideflip. I believe the backflip only worked because Luigis vertical speed was slow enough that he snapped onto the clouds floor instead of lifting over and landing down on it. Landing on a cloud doesnt let you backflip.
Backflipping straight to the Cloud Flower was 0.43s faster than sideflipping and spinning and then long jumping (the next fastest movement).
For the main trick, I originally tested how close you could get with a long jump and 3 cloud long jumps, testing from both the edge of the tower and the palm tree. The palm tree was a better starting point, but still only reached the star about two thirds of the way between it and the water below.
So instead I tried to cloud LJ from the tower and grab a respawned Cloud Flower at the same time to regain a third cloud for a third mid-air cloud LJ.
Initially, this also failed because the grounded cloud LJ didnt accelerate in mid-air like cloud LJs tend to do (they accelerate to 34hspd, which seems to be a general speed cap - infinite flutters also reach this speed).
As I learned from Shiverburn and Cloudy Court, sometimes the first cloud LJ of the bunch needs something special to get that fastest speed; Im not sure what, but there is always a way to eventually get it.
In this case, it seems to be that the LJ has to be near the edge of the tower (which Im beginning to think is the case for all of them aside from mid-air ones).
This meant that I had to time the cloud spin to long jump near the edge while also just about picking up the Flower from the back of Luigis hitbox. This part definitely had little effort in optimising, as I was just trying to get the speed in the first place.
From there, it was as simple as getting 2-frame cloud cancels and LJs to optimise height, finishing with a spin into the star.
This route is 6 or 7 seconds faster than an altered IL route, swapping out the backflips that speedrunners use for a cloud LJ and two cloud sideflips.
#SuperMarioGalaxy2 #ToolAssistedSpeedrun [TAS demo] SMG2: Starshine Beach GS3 in 45.46s w/ cutscenes](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hg8Tyo10qE8/mqdefault.jpg)
![Supermassive GS1 0.5xA strat using Luma and Goomba [Luigi]
This is tool-assisted.
Havent been able to get the Goomba float without spinning into the floating animation (it gives more backwards speed), so getting onto the Luma without jumping was the next step.
P2 let go of the Luma by spinning.
This also saved 0.5x for Green Star 2, as the float can make it at least onto the pipes, or far enough to the other side that P2 can grab the checkpoint before death.
Havent been able to reach the launch star with this yet so the other stars are still 1x/1.5x with either this strat + jump into launch star, or doing the Goomba float from further along with a backflip which is enough to get into the launch star. Supermassive GS1 0.5xA strat using Luma and Goomba [Luigi]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iXSJYV5za-4/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TAS] SMG2: Sky Station GS2 full game route in 3xA
This focuses on overall A presses instead of just gameplay, using 2 jumps and a cutscene skip that are unnecessary to complete the level but are done to avoid dialogue.
The cutscene skip and backflip avoid the Luma at the start who has 3 textboxes, so this combination is a profit (or loss?) of 1xA.
I then perform an Odme textbox skip, where I land inside the second Lumas cutscene trigger and then get pushed out of it by the edge of the ledge while holding neutral, which sets up the cutscene but doesnt actually start it, and then I press A (as seen with the jump) which seems to press an invisible textbox that triggers the Lumas transformation. I guess this could count as a dialogue press? But its done in gameplay. This is also a profit of 1xA.
So overall, this goes down from 5xA (0x gameplay) to 3xA (2x gameplay).
As for the rest of it, I hold that last A press to see what kind of fun I can have with a bit of extra spin height.
To bounce on the Octogoomba, I use Annoyings tech of a spin knockback cancel - hugging the wall, holding Z and spinning which gets the benefit of a knockback without keeping the spin - so I get the height to bounce but dont hit it with a spin.
Running up the slope is something Nim found, as the cameras distance from a slope affects its slipperiness somehow: https://youtu.be/7gjMQlb7KZY
LUMA BOUNCE STAR GRAB POG
#SuperMarioGalaxy2 #AButtonChallenge [TAS] SMG2: Sky Station GS2 full game route in 3xA](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/iakuD0IpylY/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TAS] Super Mario Galaxy 2: Melty Monster Green Star 2 in 36.46s
Luigi jumps the lava waves with P2 helping to collect a Green Star in 36.46 seconds [IGT, 2188 frames].
The pull star section has room for improvement as I only tested one other route - there could be better ways through that first half to lead into the final couple of pulls.
Its worth noting that you can skip the first launch star but its yet to be done faster: https://youtu.be/ESACxGIBFbE
The main show is in the second planet.
Nemi43 found that the very front of the lava waves make a short wall, which gives you a fast horizontal lava boost (a lava wall boost), and the speed cap doesnt reset for the following lava boosts despite them being normal vertical boosts: https://youtu.be/A2DOqAVK-uo
As P2 can grab and hold a Life Mushroom from earlier, I was able to get the lava wall boost much earlier without worrying about health. This saved ~2.5s over Nemis 1P method.
I had to delay the backflip a few frames as an instant backflip wouldnt have hit the wall. Despite this, backflipping was 8 frames faster than long jumping, single jumping, and instant backflip + spin.
Delaying the first cutscene skip for a few frames would have saved in-game time for this, but this TAS was part of real-time testing of cutscenes vs no cutscenes.
I did also try combining a jump cancel with something, but I found you can only jump cancel if you delay activating the previous launch star - this might be to do with tilt. Launch stars are weird.
For the lava boosts, I started to strain to the left near the end to try to cancel or at least shorten the running animation, as you can only single jump or long jump out of this. I tried cancelling by running off the edge, but it was too slow getting back on far enough to do anything useful.
I first thought I had shortened the running animation, but on review, it didnt actually do anything. But with the leeway of where I needed to be for the final jump, it didnt lose any time.
Single jumping out of the start of the animation only lets you backflip 4 frames later than letting the animation play out itself.
Backflip spin saved ~0.85s over triple jump spin. The leeway mentioned above is that the lava wall Luigi backflips towards is very close, so going straight backwards wouldve got burned too soon.
I had managed to get the spin directly into the tornado to avoid a lava boost, but this loses time as the resulting instant tornado spin is too low to grab the star.
#SuperMarioGalaxy2 #ToolAssistedSpeedrun [TAS] Super Mario Galaxy 2: Melty Monster Green Star 2 in 36.46s](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ig1Qc9T3mCE/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TAS] Super Mario Galaxy 2: Honeybloom Secret in 14.93s
Luigi and P2 find the Secret Wall Jump secretly, thereby secretly adding another secret star to their secret collection of secret stars, secretly. In 14.93 seconds [IGT, 896 frames].
The fly-in cutscene is 11 frames faster for in-game time, as the timer starts ~30 units further into the level, and Luigi grabs the vine further on, having flying speed for a few frames into the timer.
I had not-so-secretly done this star a few months ago, looking to improve on Sonicpackers 15.16 (https://youtu.be/_kzoAt4X5Uc), but could only manage to tie this time with a different wall jump route (https://youtu.be/c8orefszdIU). But with better understanding of walljumps and techniques like neutral walljump strain (going neutral on the joystick when walljumping to allow for earlier strain), I went back to it.
2 frames were saved in the first half leading to the first walljump after the swing.
This took a lot of experimenting, but the eventual result was using neutral walljump strain from the second walljump to hold back before the spin onto the Goomba, and using P2 to freeze the Goomba into a certain mid-air position from its jump. And also letting go of A a couple of frames before the peak of the spin to bounce off a specific part of the Goomba.
This combination grabbed the swing 1 frame earlier, and at a specific height (1931.436157 Y position) necessary for the part below.
The height and speed from the following swing jump had enough height to allow me to let go of A at the peak of the following spin, which gives a significant speed boost (14.49 horizontal speed compared to 8.74 holding A). This grabbed the wall 1 frame earlier.
Then came learning that holding different directions in walljumps can have a very slight effect on vertical speed, slight meaning from tenths to thousandths of units. Holding the direction away from the wall (the walljumps direction) will lower the vertical speed while having faster horizontal speed, and holding towards the wall (against the walljumps direction) will raise the vertical speed.
Neutral walljump strain pushes the differences further.
While that wallgrab had been 2 frames faster, it was also 12 units lower than the previous TAS, so I used the higher walljumps holding back towards the wall - as well as a better spin from the first walljump to the second - to try to claw back some of the lost height. This resulted in just 1 frame saved overall (after 6 hours of work).
I then went on Sonicpackers route with the knowledge of slightly lower walljumps.
The first walljump and spin had to be higher than what was possible as otherwise the third walljump wouldnt make it to the wall above the crystal, so a Wiimote spin holding A for 2 frames was used, followed by higher walljumps to get high enough to barely grab the bottom of that wall.
Lower walljumps were then used, however, these werent necessary as they didnt lead to an earlier landing.
But for the final walljump, neutral walljump strain was useful for straining up towards the star and also getting further left to set up a straighter line to the star, saving 3 frames.
Holding neutral just before landing kept momentum to allow for an earlier long jump, followed by another long jump to the star.
#SuperMarioGalaxy2 #ToolAssistedSpeedrun [TAS] Super Mario Galaxy 2: Honeybloom Secret in 14.93s](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/isFyMAXZtao/mqdefault.jpg)